With the launch of my new and updated website, I thought it poignant to re-publish this post, which speaks very much about the journey I have had with connecting with my inner voice.

I can perhaps say that I’ve been hearing the calls of an inner voice throughout my life. Of course, in the beginning, this call was not very clear….or maybe I just didn’t have the ears to hear it.

I think the first time I really recognised what I could loosely describe as an inner voice, was around when I was about 20 years old—it wasn’t something I heard but was more something I felt.

(This first experience would unravel many years later to become what I now see as clear inner guidance.)

I was heading to Polytechnic for the first time and my two elder brothers were taking me.

We packed my brother James’s car with all the things I would need for my year in halls of residence —It was a week before the start of the new term.

Although this incident happened over 30 years ago, the events of that day are still deeply etched in my memory.

I remember it all so clearly.

It was mid-September, on a bright, sunny day. The motorway was busy with traffic but it was moving and we were making good progress.

About mid-way through the two-hour journey, everything suddenly changed.

From out of nowhere, another car unexpectedly drove into our lane giving us little space or time to manoeuvre—I saw the white car coming towards our car from the corner of my eye.

My brother Isaac had no time to react.

The white car clipped ours and sent my brothers and me into immediate fear and panic. “Oh my God,” Isaac screamed.

Then all I could see were his hands frantically working the steering wheel, trying his best to steady our car as he completely lost control.

I closed my eyes.

It was as if everything moved into slow motion, but the sounds around me were crystal clear—screeching tyres, the sound of other cars whizzing past.

I felt our car skid into a turn and I had the distinct awareness that we were moving in another direction, not forward.

I was sure we were going to die.

In my mind, there was no way we could survive, so I braced myself for what would surely come. But In the darkness of my closed eyes, I could see a gently swirling white light.

There was serenity in this light.

Everything was still, I felt calm, relaxed and unafraid. I simply accepted the fact that I was going to die.

After what felt like an eternity the car came to a crunching, bumpy stop.

We had hit something hard, and this thing had caused our car to come to a halt. The force of the impact jerked me off the back seat onto the floor and I fell to my knees.

I sat there with my eyes tightly closed waiting for death.

Then I heard my brother Isaac say “Is everyone alright.”

James, who was sitting in the front passenger seat, mumbled a “Yes.”

I kept silent, convinced that I was dead.

Then Isaac’s voice became panic-stricken and he shouted

“Jacq, Jacq are you alright, are you alright?”

He couldn’t see my condition because I was slouched on my knees.

His panic threw me back into conscious awareness, so with my eyes still closed, I cautiously scanned my body and realised I was alive and well. I slowly opened my eyes and said, “Yes I’m ok.”

When I opened my eyes and saw where we were, it shocked me. Our car had travelled from the fast lane of the motorway onto the grass verge on the other side, without hitting another car.

We had crashed boot first through the wooden fencing that separates the road from the grass bank. This fencing lay strewn all about the car. Splintered pieces of the fence had been forced into the grass and now stood erect, like a circular army, protecting our car.

It was an eerie sight and one, which I can say really frightened me.

Many of the people travelling on the motorway that day, who witnessed the accident, came to help us, they gathered near the wreckage of our car. The emergency services had been called; an ambulance was waiting, as were the police.

The driver of the white car, however, hadn’t stopped.

The on-lookers were surprised that my brothers and I walked out of our car alive and many commented on how lucky we were to have survived.

James’s car was a write-off—but we were all alright.

Apart from a small cut on James’s face, we had no other injuries.

My things in the back of the car had taken most of the force of the impact when we stopped and I’m convinced that this is certainly what saved me from any serious injuries.

When I saw how beaten up our car was—the fact that all three of us had survived, how the shards of the broken fence had stuck around us with none penetrating the car or hitting us, it made me realise just how fortunate we had been.

I felt a deep sense of awe, as it seemed like something unseen, unknown and much bigger than anything I could imagine had protected us.

In the week following the accident, every time I thought about what happened, I would burst into tears. Not because I had been in an accident, but because in those moments, I really felt the sacredness and preciousness of life.

It humbled me how quickly life could change and it made me feel so grateful to be alive.

At the time I liked to think of this protective force as guardian angels looking after me. Later I would come to see this force as my divine or higher sacred self.

After a week at home, I travelled back to Poly with my dad and all my things on a coach. As you can imagine, it was quite scary getting back on the motorway, even if it was in the relative safety of a coach.

I slept the whole way.

Very soon the excitement of living away from home in a new city, meeting and making friends—with so many people all own my age, my studies and the amazing student parties I started going to, pushed the trauma of the accident to the back of my mind.

Of course, my contact with the protective force also got pushed away and it would be many years before it would surface again.